Page 83 of I'll Look for You, Everywhere
After a quick shower, Theo sits on the edge of the bathtub, watching me through the fogged mirror as I wait for the tap to warm before filling the basin and wetting a washcloth to clean up the blood the shower didn’t wash. I’ve swapped the blanket for one of Dante’s sweatshirts and my ratty pyjama shorts I snuck into the luggage before Anika could stop me.
‘Why did you choose Oxford?’ he asks as I look at him in the reflection of the mirror.
I frown, never having had to justify or explain my choice. ‘I don’t know. I know our parents went there.’ I think about the four of them in the same city, studying in the same library as me before a big exam. ‘But it wasn’t just that. Sure, I’m happy to know that I’m just as capable as them. Just as smart.’ I run my finger underneath the tap but the water is still too cold. ‘But it was better that I could do it my way. By myself, I guess. I could not talk or not leave my bed for days and they wouldn’t know, which was fun in the beginning. They check up on me less because they went there.’ I check the water again and this time it’s warm and I dip the cloth underneath the tap.
‘And you like that they don’t check up on you? You don’t feel lonely?’
As I turn around, Theo’s looking at me contemplatively. He’s so obviously trying to figure me out that I start to feel self-conscious.
‘I’ve always preferred being lonely.’ Theo silently opens his legs for me to step between and immediately starts stroking my calves, the backs of my knees, my thighs. I fight the urge to sigh and fall into his touch but focus on cleaning him up, gently scrubbing the blood off his chin.
‘Interesting. I grew up constantly surrounded by noise. When I first got to Connecticut, my roommate was a week late, so it was just me in the dorm. I felt like I was going insane.’
My finger brushes under his chin and he looks up at me, his eyes somehow greyer in the fluorescent lights. The salt water has made his hair curlier and he looks so perfect that I train my gaze only on the bottom half of his face.
‘I’ve been this way since I was a kid.’ When I say that, Theo looks down.
‘What’s wrong?’
His head stays tilted downwards so I can only see his hair, curls in a messy halo around him. Just when I’m about to ask again, he looks back up at me, a small smile on his lips. ‘Nothing. We just never spoke much before. As kids, I mean. I would have liked to know that.’ His tone is off and his jaw hardens a little.
‘You seemed so much older back then,’ I say. ‘I was always hiding behind a corner when you came around.’ Theo flinches when I try to clean the blood around his nose, and I wince. ‘Sorry. I see Dante put all his effort into this punch.’
He responds by sliding his hand up my legs, playing with the edge of my shorts, and my stomach tightens. ‘I can take a little pain, Magdalen. So, anyway, you were scared of me?’ he probes.
‘Scared?’ I make my way down his neck until I reach the edge of his shirt, focusing on dabbing the blood off his collarbone and not how his voice seems to lower each time he talks. I press my lips together as his fingernail grazes lazily across my thighs, feeling the need to grip his shoulders to steady myself from his touch. ‘Intimidated,’ I conclude. ‘Even as a teen, you were just... big.’ I dip the towel underneath his shirt, massaging him in slow circles, and feel his breath quicken.
‘Why didn’t you ever call me across our telephone wire?’ he asks, and it sounds so earnest, so genuinely curious, that my hand stills underneath his shirt. I try to think of a way to explain how small I began to feel by the time he left, but everything sounds so pitiful.
‘I was intimidated by you even across the street and over the phone.’
How could I ever think that the brightest star in Chivasso would want to talk to me across the telephone wire? A line reserved for secret confessions and after-school gossip. For the nights when we were grounded. A little tug to wake the other up. Did you hear? Yes, I heard. But tell me anyway.
‘Dante spent our childhood trying to ignore my existence,’ I shrug, the words stinging even after living though it for the past decade. ‘I figured you wanted to, too.’
Theo’s demeanour changes at the mention of Dante. ‘We’re not the same person.’
‘You could have talked to me.’ The idea of him initiating conversation with a seven-year-old version of myself is laughable. By then, he was already hanging around girls and drinking caffè. I had just learned how to use scissors to cut my sister’s headbands in half.
‘I was scared of you.’
Rolling my eyes, I make my way back to the sink and toss the now red washcloth in the laundry basket. ‘Scared I might ask you to read me a story?’ I turn the tap back on to wash my hands as Theo strips off his shirt, throwing it in the basket, too. I try not to stare at him in the mirror but he’s just so beautiful that I give up and watch as he stretches his hands above his head. He’s all sharp contours and biceps. No one should look this fucking good after having been beaten up.
Theo rests his hands on his hips as he examines me, eyes travelling up my body so intensely that I feel lightheaded.
‘Maybe I was scared of how young you were. Like you were another person I could easily mess up.’
I turn the sink off and rest my hands on the basin as Theo walks up close behind me so that my back lightly touches his chest.
‘Anika came out fine. Arguably better than me, some would say,’ I say, but my throat is dry. He slowly leans further into my back and moves my hair to the right side before covering my hands with his on the basin, squeezing me gently beneath him as he cages me tightly against him. I suppress a shudder as he continues, settling his chin in the crook of my neck.
‘Mhm,’ he breathes, running his nose through my hair before going back to staring at us in the mirror. ‘So lovely.’ He licks his bottom lip, taking it between his teeth, and it’s enough to make me arch against him. He inhales sharply as my ass becomes flush with his groin. I watch in the mirror as his eyes fall to where our bodies meet and he groans.
‘Look how well you fit.’ He says it absentmindedly, and this time when I grind against him, his hands snake around my stomach possessively, fingers sliding down until they hook between where my thigh meets my pubic bone, making it impossible to move.
‘No, no.’ He curls his fingers tighter, looking at me in the reflection. ‘My turn.’
Theo grabs my hand and pulls me into the blue bedroom. It’s stifling in here with the window shut but I’m so nervous that walking all the way across the room feels impossible. I almost pat myself on the back for not throwing up yet, but I hold off. There’s still time. A single seashell nightlight plugged in the far-left corner of the room dimly illuminates the space, but besides that it is dark and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust.
